Self-Driving Car Bill’s Backers Seek Senate Vote Before It’s Too Late
Washington Examiner cited CEI’s Senior Fellow Marc Scribner on self-driving vehicle regulatory framework.
Lawmakers and American car manufacturers are mounting a last-ditch effort to move legislation setting up an initial regulatory framework for self-driving vehicles to President Trump before the end of the year.
While a bill from Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., is stalled in the chamber amid opposition from several Democrats and trial attorneys, progress during recent talks may soon yield an updated version, people familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner.
If the measure doesn’t advance before the end of the year, supporters worry that Democrats would seek significant changes to the legislation once they take control of the House in January, stalling what the industry says is a desperately needed federal oversight structure.
“If they can’t get it done under favorable conditions in this Congress, I suspect you are going to see a lot of developers looking abroad to make these critical investments,” Marc Scribner, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in a recent interview. “It signals to the industry that Congress can’t be serious about this.”
